Remembering Wouter Weylandt

One year ago, on stage three of the Giro d’Italia, our team mate and friend Wouter Weylandt died after crashing on the descent from the Passo del Bocco. Today, the peloton in the Giro d’Italia will commemorate the anniversary of his death, by holding a minute of silence at the start of the stage in Horsens. They will also pay homage to Mayor Jan Trøjborg of Horsens, who died yesterday.

The crash of Wouter, who had won stage three of the Giro one year earlier, left the peloton in shock. Stage four, along the Tuscan coast to Livorno, was neutralized, with each team leading the pack for 10km and each rider in the knowledge that what happened to Wouter could have happened to any one of their number.

Wouter’s partner An-Sophie and his family received great support from the Giro organizers and the whole cycling family. The team established a fund to provide monetary assistance to the family.

Wouter, stai sempre con noi. We will never forget your radiant smile and your witty humor. You spoke with great pride about becoming a father and starting a family with An-Sophie. We will miss you. Remember you. Celebrate you. Forever hold you in our hearts.

Taken from the RadioShack Nissan Trek Facebook page

Cycle Show 2010: Condor Leggero

The second post from my 2010 London Cycle Show outing and this one is from local UK cycle store, Condor Cycles.

The Condor Leggero frames are built using Dedacciai tubesets in their Italian factory. Carbon, aluminium, titanium and steel frame bicycles are put through strict testing at point of manufacture, then by staff and professional team riders, ie the Rapha Condor Sharp racing team.

The signature frame in the road race range is the full carbon Condor Leggero. This model is used by the Rapha Condor Sharp race team and has helped riders to significant titles including Dean Downing’s 2008 National Criterium Championship win and Kristian House becoming 2009 National Road Race Champion.

Here is the Silver/White edition of the Condor Leggero:

Condor Leggero in white/silver

Condor Leggero

Condor Leggero in white/silver

Condor Leggero in white/silver

Limited Team Edition

A very nice looking frame that seems to have kept things simple!

And for all the tech heads that understand the ins and outs of the world of carbon fibre, here are the tech specs of the Leggero:
Frame: Dedacciai HM carbon and T900 carbon fibre with nano resins
Fork: Dedo Nero Supremacy full carbon
Colours: White/Silver or Limited Team Edition

And here are the price specs:
Frame & Fork & headset: £1999.99  or complete build: £2389.99

My entry for the NeilPryde Epic Rider competition

The guys at NeilPryde bikes have a competition on the go whereby contestants become evangelists for the company. In return, the person gets to ride a NeilPryde bike (which one is not known) for a whole year. Plus, they get a stack of other goodies etc from the company throughout the year. Clever marketing tactic to help promote a brand that is breaking its way into the world of cycling!

Anyway, I decided to enter. Here is my video entry:

Let me know what you think?

The Great Tour Recce

The Great Tour route map

Late on Friday 7 May myself and a colleague from work, Kathryn and her boyfriend Gavin, made our way down from Weybridge in Surrey to Seaton in Devon.

Now Seaton is a small seaside town on the South West coastline of Devon England. It has also been described as the gateway to the 95-mile Jurassic Coast of the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Coastline.

However, the reason for our drive down to Seaton was  so that we could do a recce of the first two stages of The Great Tour. Not on our own of course, but with a group from our office that have put together this challenging event.

So what is The Great Tour? Well, in short, it’s a circumnavigation of the outer edge of the UK coastline by bicycle.

The Great Tour itself will take place on 3 July when a group of cyclists drawn from the world of sport, celebrity, charity, politics, science and the arts will gather in Seaton to embark on one of Britain’s last great sporting challenges. Keeping the sea to their right for 64 days, the riders will never lose the sight, smell or sound of the sea during their epic 6600km pedal for charity.

The ride will be hosted by well known athletes who will be joined by a wide variety of guests and charity riders to create a colourful and inspirational sporting celebration of the British coastline.

The 2010 event will be the inaugural Great Tour, which will become an annual charity bike ride. This is most probably the most important thing to remember about the event. Its purpose is to help raise money for a charity of your choice. You take on an incredible challenge while helping to raise money for a good cause.

So this ride we embarked upon took in the first two stages of The Great Tour. Stage 1 saw us riding from Seaton to Swanage. Expected total ride distance is 128km with 2483m of ascent.

Stage two took us from Swanage to Ryde with an expected total ride distance of 114km and 1236m of ascent.

On Saturday 8 May after a great fry up breakfast at our guest house, we made our way to the Seaton sea front to await the rest of our team that were going to join us on this ride. Also joining us on the ride was Alistair Cope, a Devon local who would guide us on our way. Alistair is also one of the main guides on The Great Tour itself and is himself raising money for The Prostate Cancer Charity while taking on this 64 day challenge.

Now the weather wasn’t great. It was not too cold, but it was damp and there was intermittent drizzle about. Not something I was looking forward to.

Here  are some pictures, taken by Gavin(or Kathryn) of our ride over the two days:

Gavin Morton (our photograher) and myself outside our guest house in Seaton

Getting the bikes and ourselves ready before we set off

Discussing the road ahead

The group before our depart on stage 1 of The Great Tour

On our way out of Seaton

Wating for the group to catch up after our first climb

Gavin joining us

Road bikes to continue left on the road. Hybrids to go straight along onto the gravel roads

Appreciating why they call it the jurrasic coastline

Loving the climb, but I really do need a new bike

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Alistair going up one the many many climbs on this stage

Graeme and Kevin, Great Tour route leaders

Graeme and Kevin

Graeme and Kevin with Mick Bennett, former Olympic medallist

Taking in the scenery

Enjoying myself

I'm lovin it!

The scenery is just beautiful

Riding with Alistair and admiring how the climb just keeps going up

Taking a mini break in one of the many villages along the way

For any would be bike sponsor - Your bike could be in the picture instead of the Trek. Think about it!

We visited some interesting roads and places

Spectacular views once again

I love this picture

Feeling the pain

Graeme, Kevin and myself glad that we're coming to the end of stage 1

Packing the cars before makin our way to our local accommodation

Now we didn’t quite make the full stage. After all the stops and starts, we managed only to get to Weymouth, just over half the distance we were expecting to do for that day. But that was the whole purpose of the recce – to find out what challenges could stand in  our way when the main event takes place.

It’s at this point where I have to say that The Great Tour is not the ideal challenge to take on with a road bike. The best bike for this challenge is a hybrid. With a relaxed frame geometry and slick MTB tyres makes it easier to ride over the varying terrain than what a road bike could handle. I did manage it on my road bike, but my tyres did take a huge hammering.

But more importantly, the hybrid offers you the aditional gears you would need to climb over some of the steep sections of this ride. I have to be honest and say that I did run out of gears and some of the road surfaces were so wet that I wasn’t able to stand going up the climbs. This really did test the strength in my legs and arms. However, the road bike was great for some of the descents as we reached up to 80km/h without pedalling. Not for the feint-hearted!

Oh, before I forget, stage 1 is the hardest stage of the entire Great Tour.

Stage 2: Swanage to Ryde

After a good night’s rest, we all made our way into Swanage for our early morning start of 8:00am. Not before getting in a good breakfast though.

Our early morning breakfast stop

Running through the details of the route

Our group photo

Maing our way along the Swanage coastline

A group of men on their way to Studland - haha!

Going to Foreland (or Handfast) Point

The Foreland (or Handfast) Point

Enjoying my way along Newto Heath to catch the short ferry to Sandbanks

On the ferry to Sandbanks

Doing our bit for Mulebar - well, trying to at least

Felt Bicycles taking full advantage of the sponsorship areas I posses. Just need to get a bike from them next

Making our way along the Bournemouth coastline

The group

and in black & white

Stopping for pies in Lymington

Lymington. Well, that’s as far as I got to on day two of the ride with another 60+ km’s in the bag.  It was at this point that I joined Kathryn and Gavin as they made their way back home to Surrey. From Lymington the rest of the group made their way onto the Isle of Wight to complete the rest of their journey for stage two.

From speaking to guys afterwards, I understand that it was quite hilly too once on the Isle of Wight. So I’m glad I didn’t go the whole way as my legs were competely knackered by the time I made it home that afternoon.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself over the two days we were out there. The riding was great, the scenery spectacular and the company was excellent.

In summary, The Great Tour offers 64 days of riding, 6600 km’s, 87,500m of ascent and 500 hours in the saddle. So if you feel like taking up a new challenge and want to see the beautiful coastline that the UK offers, then why not sign up for The Great Tour.

*All photographs thanks to Gavin Morton

Chasing Legends

The past few weeks on Twitter I’ve noticed mentions of this new cycling film called Chasing Legends. I didn’t pay it much attention due to my work load and constant travelling around the UK. So this morning I’m reading through the excellent blog from Simon Lamb – La Gazzetta Della Bici – and came across a trailer for this film or documentary as I have found out.

The documentary has been put together by Gripped Films, documenting the 2009 Tour de France through the eyes of the Columbia HTC professional cycling team and the “legends of the sport”.

The world premier of the film was yesterday, the 15th March. Its timing could not have been better, especially after the epic stage in yesterday’s Giro d’Italia, which saw world road race champion Cadel Evans take the stage. As Simon Lab says in his blog:

“For a brief moment today cycling returned to a pre-war era of brave men and true spirit. Cycling is so beautiful because it breaths with the earth it is raced on and nowhere was that more apparent than on the ‘brutale ma meraviglioso’ farm tracks today. GIRO è VITA.”

A fitting stage for what seems to be a documentary that details exactly what this sport is all about – the true heroic spirit of cycling. Make sure to check it out!

Cycling on the BBC’s The One Show

Me with camera mounted on bike at Reading's Palmer Park Stadium

Late Friday evening I received an email from my local club, the Reading Cycling Club, informing members about the BBC’s request to film members of the cycling club for it’s weekly entertainment programme, The One Show (hosted by Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley). What exactly it was all for was not mentioned, but I thought ‘why not!’, so I emailed the producer to let him know I’ll come through on Monday evening. So I packed the car with my Fort fixed-wheel, all my winter gear, my new Giro Ionos, and made my way off to the track.

At the track I was met by the young riders from Palmer Park Velo who were there in force ready to get themselves onto TV. It was great to see them all there, especially as the evening was freezing cold.

Once the producer arrived, I asked him the reason behind the filming. He told me that the BBC were announcing the top 10 contenders for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Award 2008. With this, four cyclists have been nominated and they wanted to profile a cyclist each night this week on the show.

So off we went around the track doing various line formations, with the camera guy filming us from different angles from within a car that was also on the track with us. I was also lucky enough to have a camera mounted to my bike – this would be to give the viewer the same view of what I see when cycling in a group.

So if you are able to, be on the look out for the cyclists (and me, of course) every night this week at 7pm on BBC One. I’m the one on the red Fort bicycle wearing all black with the white & red helmet, and white shoes (see picture above to get a better idea of what I looked like).

Wind tunnel Lance

Lance Armstrong and Steve Hed

Looks like Lance is getting back into the swing of things in preparation for the 2009 racing season. A media event was arranged to mark the occasion at the San Diego Air & Space Technology Low Speed Wind Tunnel where Lance showed off his new black Livestrong skinsuit and Nike shoe covers. Not forgetting his new Giro aero helmet and his ever-present Oakly sunglasses too.

Representatives from equipment suppliers Trek, SRAM, SRM and Giro were there on Armstrong and longtime aerodynamic consultant Steve Hed’s request. For more info and pictures on this, visit Bikeradar.com

Helmet law halved child bike deaths

Just came across this one on the news wires. Makes for some interesting reading. Am sure this will open the wound on the age old ‘helmet or no helmet’ debate:

Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The number of bike-related deaths among children younger than 16 fell by more than half after a Canadian bike-helmet law went into effect, a new study shows.

The Ontario law, which came into force in October 1995, mandated that bicyclists younger than 18 wear a helmet.

Researchers found that in the seven years after the law went into effect, the number of bike-related deaths among children dropped by 52 percent. Between 1991 and 1995, there was an average of 13 such deaths per year; between 1996 and 2002, that number dropped to six.

In contrast, the researchers report in the journal Pediatrics, there was no reduction in deaths among bicyclists age 16 and up — including adults, who were not subject to the helmet law.

“These findings support promotion of helmet use, enforcement of the existing law, and extension of the law to adult bicyclists,” write the researchers, led by Dr. Patricia C. Parkin of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

It is well-known that bike helmets can cut the risk of dying in a cycling accident, but the extent to which helmet laws reduce death rates has been less clear.

The current findings, according to Parkin’s team, suggest that Ontario’s law made a “significant contribution” to the lower child death rates seen in the years since its introduction.

I wonder if I should send this onto the girl at Giro following the email she sent to me when I was looking for helmet safety stats?

A bit suprised with Giro!

Following my posting on the 11-year old school girl who’s head was run over by a car and survived to tell the tale, I decided to look for more safety stats into the use of helmets. So where to go to first, the helmet manufacturers of course. Yes I know their stats could be biased, but it would be a starting point nonetheless.

So, as I really like Giro helmets, I decided to approach them first. I searched around their website to see if they had any links to to safety stats. I didn’t find any. As a result, I decided to email the company and ask them for any public helmet safety stats.

A month after I sent my email, I received a reply from the company’s European team. Now I won’t mention the name of the person who responded, but this is what they had to say to my request:

“Hi Craig,

Unfortunately I do not have any information available on this subject at this time. Sorry that I cannot help you. I know the debate of to wear or not to wear a helmet is a big one! But with the e-mails I receive from people who have had a near death expediencies as a result of crashes on their bikes I would recommend that everyone wear a helmet.

Sorry I cannot provide more information.

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us here at Giro.

Kind regards,”

Mmmm -  interesting response to say the least…? Am still not sure how to respond to this. At the very least the company could have pointed me in the direction of where I could find some stats. Was and still am willing to do the searching for it.

But as helpful as they want to be, the sentence: “… with the e-mails I receive from people who have had a near death expediencies as a result of crashes on their bikes I would recommend that everyone wear a helmet” just doesn’t seem to convince me.

I think it’s time to ask my friend Google for some more help in my searches on this topic.

Helmet that served its purpose

So, took a good look at my helmet to assess the damage done to it following my crash.  Quite amazed to find where the cracks have appeared. At the very least, I’m pleased that it has done exactly what it was meant to do – protect my noggin in a crash.

Here are some pics of my helmet with the crash impact points and cracks in the frame.

My Pneumo

Impact point

First crack

Second crack

Inner view of first crack at rear of helmet

Inner view of second crack at rear of helmet

Holding clip for roll cage ripped and unusable

Well, it’s served me well. Now to get it all packaged up and ready to send back to Giro. No need to throw it away. Am sure they can in some way benefit from receiving it.